TSMC's February sales slip back

LONDON – Sales at foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) in February were down 13.2 percent from January at NT$41.18 billion (about $1.39 billion), but were up 21.5 percent over the same month a year before.

It is normal for sales to decline sequentially in February – due to the shorter month and Chinese New Year holidays – but the reported sales decline was larger than the average of 6.1 percent that TSMC has experienced over the previous ten years.

Nonetheless TSMC's revenues for the year-to-date totaled NT$88.62 billion (about $2.99 billion), an increase of 29.4 percent compared to the same period in 2012.

Rival foundry United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) reported February sales of NT$8.73 billion (about $295 million), down 7.6 percent from January but up 3.4 percent on February 2012. UMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has year-to-date sales of NT$18.18 billion (about $613 million), up 5.2 percent on the same period a year before.